innovation - its not what you think
DESCRIPTION
Many companies attempt group wide innovation initiatives. Others leave it at a grass roots level. But everyone thinks technology has a leading role to play... However, what is always forgotten is that the technology is only as good as the people who put it there. This presentation will show how motivated, happy employees are the best way to bring innovation and creativity into the workplace, irrespective of the company size.TRANSCRIPT
Innovation
It’s not what you
think
Many companies attempt group wide
innovation initiatives. Others leave it at a grass
roots level. But everyone thinks technology
has a leading role to play.
It’s true that technology has
done some great things.
But what is always forgotten is that the
technology is only as good as the people who
put it there.
+ +
If in any doubt where innovation comes from within a company, sack all the people but
leave the lights on and systems running and you’ll quickly find out. The only innovation
left will be organic decay.
So why not simply remove the constraints to
motivated, happy employees and let them get
on with designing the products they’d love to
use themselves, because others will too.
What do we know for certain about our own experience at work?
It’s simply that we will only ever know our own experience, and
our experience is deeply personal to us.
Our experience is ever changing by the minute, hour, day, week etc.
And a lot of how we feel is unpleasant and not desirable.
So what we try to do is manage our own internal experience into something else.
We constantly rationalise stuff mentally or achieve
stuff externally to avoid certain feelings and obtain
more pleasurable states. Like trying to constantly
balance a set of broken scales.
Hard constraints to
innovation
Many people have feelings and experiences so painful they are hidden away
in a place called the personal “locked box”. These feelings are directly
related to fear and a primal instinct to survive. On the occasions they do
arise, our behaviour is deeply affected and innovation impossible.
Soft constraints to
innovation
Daily life involves busily chasing certain
feelings and different experiences. It’s
like being on automatic pilot, moving
forward but largely unaware. This is
also a hindrance to innovation.
Freedom
Flexibility
Control
These are the key ingredients for motivated,
happy employees, and also the conditions for
lasting innovation:
Every employee needs to
experiment with their own personal
working conditions. To learn for
themselves what they need for peak
performance.
Lots and lots of experiments are needed, because learning takes time and it’s fun too.
Every so often insights of pure genius will occur from unexpected
places simply due to having the time and space to conduct the
experiments.
Freedom to experiment will bring periodic, temporary pain to the
individual as they get to look inside and experience themselves
more fully. Good support and guidance is necessary.
The correct organisational structure
for employee happiness and innovation
is critical but not easy to come by.
Does this stuf f really work?
Yes, watch the video to see how this philosophy was put
into practice at a city based corporate bank…
You Tube – A New Way of Working
Some companies have even adopted this deck as the basis
of their employee handbook, or as an appendix to it. It
was even written as a collaborative endeavour.
Please get in touch to f ind out more
Frank Ray
Andy McLean